Annual or Single Trip Travel Insurance - what's best?

July 15th, 2009

One of the first decisions you have to make when taking out travel insurance is whether to buy solely for the planned trip you intend to make or take out a policy that covers more than one trip, widely termed the annual multi-trip policy. The best way to approach this is to look at the advantages of a multi-trip policy but set them against their limitations and then decide on what best suits your needs.

So what does an annual multi-trip travel insurance policy offer you over a single trip policy? Firstly, the more trips you take in a year, the more cost effective an annual policy will be and one purchase lasts the whole year. Many annual travel insurance policies have options, such as Winter Sports cover, included as standard but do check the small print. It is normally possible to extend the individual trip duration for a small extra premium, say from the industry standard of 31 days a trip to 60 or 90 days, which is a much cheaper option than buying a single trip policy for the same period.

But set against this, an annual policy only provides cover for the area you have selected. That is, if you take out an annual policy that provides cover for Europe but then book a holiday later in the year to the USA, then this destination will not be covered so it is something to consider when buying such a policy. The annual policy is a more expensive up front cost though there are some very good internet annual travel insurance deals to be had. Many insurers impose stricter age restrictions for taking out an annual policy compared to the single trip equivalent and there might be restrictions on family annual travel insurance policies that prevent children from travelling independently.

The place to look is on the internet and most travel insurance providers will provide an annual travel insurance quote at the same time as giving you the single trip price so this helps to compare at the time of taking out insurance. If you can plan ahead and want the flexibility of taking more than one holiday or trip abroad, then buying an annual travel insurance policy is, more often than not, a good investment, but do make sure that what you buy satisfies your particular needs.